


when it never lands at all

by asterismal (asterisms)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Challenger Harry Potter, Champion Tom Riddle, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Hedwig the Wooloo, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pokemon Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27105841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterismal
Summary: One quiet afternoon in Postwick, Harry Potter intercepts a young man attempting to enter the Slumbering Weald—an ancient forest that has long been off limits on account of the dangerous pokémon waiting within.Three years later, Tom Riddle becomes the youngest League Champion the Galar region has ever seen.(These things are most certainly related.)
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123





	when it never lands at all

**Author's Note:**

> > “There are bad ways to win, and good ways to lose. What’s interesting and troubling is that it’s not always clear which is which. A flipped coin doesn’t always land on heads or tails. Sometimes it may never land at all.” 
> 
> — Grimsley 

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

At the sound of his voice, the man standing before the gate to the Slumbering Weald stills. Harry forces himself not to shy away, grips tight at Hedwig’s coat for courage. She bleats when the man turns to face them. 

Harry hasn’t seen him around before.

When he smiles, it doesn’t meet his eyes. “Pardon?” 

“The forest is off limits,” Harry tells him, doing his best to keep his voice steady, like Aunt Petunia taught him when she grew tired of the way he cried. “You’re not allowed in without permission.”

“Says who?”

Harry frowns. “Says Professor Dumbledore.” 

“Well,” the strange man says, mocking, “if _Professor Dumbledore_ says.”

Harry glares, cheeks hot. “It’s _dangerous.”_

The man sneers back at him. “I’ve prepared for this day for years. I assure you, I can handle it.”

Prepared? 

Harry shakes the thought from his head, scowling. It doesn’t matter what he’s here for. It doesn’t matter how _prepared_ he is. His fist, tangled in Hedwig’s wool, clenches. “No, you can’t,” he says, and Hedwig stomps her front hooves in warning as his voice rises. “And even if you could. You’re not. Allowed.” 

The man doesn’t even spare Hedwig a glance. “Are you going to stop me, then?” he asks, laughing. He bares his teeth in a grin when Harry’s cheeks flush hotter. “You—a child, not even old enough to leave town?” 

“Yes,” he says, squaring his shoulders. He ignores the taunting voice in his head, sounding exactly like Dudley, that tells him to give it up already. “I will.”

For a moment, the man almost looks impressed.

Then he sighs. “I assume you’ll go running for help the moment I hop the fence,” he says, sounding bored. 

Harry swallows through a lump in his throat. His palms feel sweaty. 

He doesn’t say anything, but apparently that’s answer enough.

“Yes,” the man says. And for all that he still has Harry pinned beneath his gaze, he sounds as though he’s talking to himself. “Yes, I thought so. It really is a shame.”

Harry doesn’t back away, but he wants to.

“What’s a shame?” he asks. Pressed against his leg, Hedwig trembles, agitated. 

The man smiles, tilts his head. “Such a _brave_ boy,” he says, like Harry hasn’t said a thing. “There’s value in that, you know. _I_ value it. Only…” He takes a step forward, and Hedwig bleats a warning. He takes another. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, not when you’ve seen me here today.”

“That’s not funny,” Harry says, and he feels like he can barely breathe.

“Believe me,” the man tells him, his smile widening to a grin, “it wasn’t meant to be.”

He takes another step, and Hedwig charges. The man leaps out of her path with a shout, and Harry watches with his heart in his throat as she turns sharply, brandishing her horns, ready to try again. 

“That’s _it,”_ the man snarls, one hand falling to his belt, where four poké balls gleam. 

“No!” Harry shouts, racing forward to stop him, only to be met with a backhand to the jaw that sends him sprawling.

He sits up—feeling dizzy—just in time to watch Hedwig gouge her tiny horns into the man’s calf. The man hisses in pain, and she only just rolls out of the way of a kick aimed at her head before stopping back at Harry’s side. He buries his hands in her coat and holds tight, because he doesn’t trust this man not to do more than kick at her next time she tries to charge. Still, he can’t stop her when she bleats again in challenge. 

The next time the man turns to look at him, his teeth are bared.

He’s breathing heavy, glaring. 

“I don’t enjoy death,” he says, stalking forward, only barely limping from Hedwig’s attack. Harry scrambles back, tugging Hedwig with him. “Every drop of blood spilled is a drop wasted, but _you—”_

He rises to his full, towering height.

Then, just over the hill beside the path, a dubwool calls, and Hedwig bleats again, louder than before. The man holds himself still, waiting. He’s trembling—no doubt with the effort it takes not to lunge for Harry and wring his neck.

Another call, closer this time.

Harry lets out the breath he was holding, gasping as he presses his face into Hedwig’s wool. 

He _knows_ that call.

Someone is coming.

The man’s jaw clenches, and then finally— _finally—_ his hand falls away from the poké balls on his belt. As Hedwig bleats again, he watches Harry with a dark, furious gaze. “What’s your name?” he asks, no hint of a snarl remaining, like he hadn’t just been about to kill him.

Like he doesn’t still want to.

Harry glares, kneeling with his arms wrapped around Hedwig’s neck. “I’m not telling you _anything.”_

“Oh, come now.” The man pouts, an expression that looks distinctly out of place after the scowl from before, and Harry shrinks back. “I asked you nicely.” 

A human voice joins the dubwool’s cry. 

“Harry!” Mrs. Weasley calls for him, from not very far at all, and he thinks he could cry from relief. 

But instead of getting upset or turning to flee now that they’re about to be found, the man only grins, and the relief turns to a stone in Harry’s chest that sinks all the way to his stomach. _“Harry,”_ he echoes, his eyes gleaming. “Harry from Postwick, I’ll remember you.”

Promise made, he finally flees—aided by an abra’s teleport—and by the time Mrs. Weasley reaches him, her dubwool leading the way, Harry can do little more than let himself be ushered back to the village, the sound of his name, said with such relish, playing on and on in his head.

He thinks this might be a problem.

Three years later, he’s at the gate again.

This time, however, there’s no Hedwig beside him to keep him safe. There’s just the stitch in his side and the burn of his lungs as he throws himself to the ground, only just avoiding getting burnt to a crisp by a centiskorch’s flamethrower. 

The man commanding the centiskorch curses, and he risks a look back.

The white mask on his face is cracked, courtesy of the rock Harry threw before making a break for the village, but it’s still there, looking skull-like as ever. The black robes he wears are torn, but still, he can’t make out the shape of the person beneath them.

He scrambles to his feet, breaking into another sprint. 

He tried to reach the Weasley’s farm after the first attack, but the centiskorch had blocked the way before he could, and so he had no choice but to head for the forest instead.

Maybe, if he can get past the gate, the man won’t follow. The Slumbering Weald has a reputation, after all. If that won’t protect him, at the very least, the fog might help him hide. He clears the fence, and the man chasing him curses louder than before. He hears a crash that must be the gate being blasted open. 

He doesn’t risk another look back. 

Instead, he veers off the path, dodging around tree trunks so wide he couldn’t wrap his arms around them if he tried and doing his best not to get tangled in the thick underbrush. The farther he gets from the entrance, the thicker the fog gets, until he can barely see enough to make sure he doesn’t run face first into a tree.

Behind him, he can hear the man and his pokémon, still giving chase.

Then the ground disappears from beneath him.

With a muffled yelp, he tumbles headfirst down a shallow ravine. He lands on his belly beside a river, his mouth full of dirt and leaves that he spits to the forest floor with a grimace. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he pushes himself back to his feet. 

He has no idea where he is.

But the man chasing him is still too close.

His knees aching, he sets off again, slower this time, just in case he comes across another ravine. The fog is even thicker now.

Whenever he stops to rest—to breathe with his hand pressed flat against his side—he hears crashing footsteps and the sound of the centiskorch’s many legs not far behind, and he runs again. By the time he stumbles into what looks like a clearing, underbrush giving way to sweet-smelling grass that barely brushes his ankles as it sways, he’s ready to fall to the ground and let himself be caught.

He drops to his knees, and he doesn’t get up again.

Even death by flamethrower sounds better than another minute spent running through this godsforsaken forest.

When he finally gets his breathing back under control, he notices.

The forest around him is silent. 

But that can’t be right. The man was just behind him, wasn’t he? Harry could’ve sworn he heard him close by, only moments ago.

He looks around, feels a chill run down his spine when he realizes he has no idea which direction he came from. Everywhere he turns, he sees the same thing—a wall of fog so thick he can’t even see the shape of the trees he just left.

“Oh, no,” he says, voice faint. 

Even if the man chasing him doesn’t manage to kill him, he’s more likely to die of starvation—or of thirst, or be mauled to death by some wild pokémon—than he is to find his way back out again.

Then he hears it.

A long, howling cry, unlike anything he’s ever heard. It seems to come from all around him, growing louder and louder, until— Underneath it, he hears the sounds of the forest again—trees groaning as they sway, pokémon rustling through the underbrush, and a pair of familiar, heavy footsteps, moving just beyond the clearing’s edge.

The footsteps stop.

Harry listens with his heart in his throat, waiting to be found. Waiting for another awful command.

Instead, the man begins to scream, and he hears a new sound, like something tearing.

He chokes on his next breath. His body feels like it’s made of lead, but he feels as though his head could pop right off and drift away into the fog above him. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He presses his hands to his ears because he can’t do anything else, clenching his eyes shut as he rocks himself in place, trying and failing to drown out the sounds of a man getting ripped apart, just beyond the fog. 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, trembling on his knees.

Eventually, the noise stops.

The forest is quiet again.

In the silence, he counts his breaths, the beats of his heart. He holds himself still, like maybe if he doesn’t move, whatever hurt— _killed—_ the man won’t find him.

Then he feels hot air move against the back of his neck.

A scream dying in his throat, he turns to face it and sees. . .

It’s a pokémon, but not one he’s ever seen before. It towers over him where he’s sprawled back on the forest floor. It looks almost like a boltund, or maybe an absol, but the color of its fur is a deep, rust red. Around its muzzle, on its paws, its white fur is stained crimson. 

It moves closer, then, and he can’t help the whine that builds in the back of his throat. It huffs, and its breath smells like iron.

Like blood.

“Please,” Harry says, clenching his eyes shut. He thinks he might pass out. “Please don’t.”

He thinks he’d prefer passing out to being awake while. . .

A cold, wet nose touches his cheek. He flinches away, but the creature only huffs at him again.

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

The creature looks back at him with a dark, patient gaze. It blinks lazily, then darts forward, and for a moment he thinks he’s about to be eaten. Instead, the creature only presses the crown of its head firmly to his chest, over his heart. He holds himself still as best he can, letting it do what it wants.

He only breathes again when the creature lifts its head to stare intently over his shoulder, tilting its head, its ears swivelling. On some signal Harry doesn’t hear, it turns and lopes away, disappearing back into the fog. 

And Harry is alone again.

Slowly, so slowly he almost doesn’t notice, the fog begins to lift.

He’s still shaking when they find him. 

He doesn’t stop until he feels familiar arms around him, hears the voice of Mrs. Weasley in his ear as she holds him to her chest and strokes his hair. “You’re safe, Harry,” she says, pressing a firm kiss to his temple. He leans into her, and he doesn’t cry. “You’re alright. It’s alright.”

He gasps. “I—” 

“Shh, love,” she says into his hair, holding him impossibly tighter. “Just breathe.”

“B-but—” He cuts himself off, frustrated when the words won’t come. “Th-there—”

Mrs. Weasley kisses him again, this time on the top of his head. “It’s alright.”

“Th-there was—” He forces out the words, stopping only when he shivers too hard to speak. He breathes. Then, through gritted teeth, he presses on. “There w-was a man. He—”

“We know, love,” Mrs. Weasley tells him. 

Harry furrows his brows, tries to process this. “But. . . how?”

“We. . .” Her voice trails off, and when she turns to the man at her side, so does Harry. 

“We found him, Harry,” Charlie Weasley—dressed in his League uniform, which means he must have come straight from his gym—tells him, looking solemn as he crouches to meet Harry’s gaze. “The man who chased you. Well, we found. . . most of him.”

Harry’s breath catches. He’s shaking again.

“I heard him screaming,” he confesses, his voice small. “I didn’t help him.” 

Charlie presses his lips together. He looks sad. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

This makes him pause, confused. “Why?”

Charlies opens his mouth to answer, then shuts it again, looking away. He feels Mrs. Weasley’s hand on his cheek and turns to meet her gaze. “Because this shouldn’t have happened to you,” she tells him as she rubs her thumb over his cheek, and her voice is so gentle it makes him want to cry again, though he knows he’s too old for it. “Because we’re supposed to keep you safe.” 

“But…” he trails off, looks down at himself. He isn’t hurt. “I _am_ safe.”

_“Now_ you are.” Charlie’s hand falls on his shoulder, and he squeezes. “And that’s a _good_ thing, Harry, but. . .” He looks away again, then shakes his head, giving up on explaining. “C’mon,” he says with a sigh, “let’s get you out of this awful place. Dumbledore’s been frantic.”

And so he’s escorted out of the Slumbering Weald, a Weasley on either side of him, with Mrs. Weasley’s dubwool at his back and Charlie’s dragapult leading the way.

He doesn’t look back until they reach the destroyed gate.

When he does look back, his breath catches. Watching from the fog, almost too far away for him to make out, is the shadowy figure of the pokémon that saved him. 

As the fog finally gives way to the light, he could almost swear he sees it bow.

That night, Harry sits in front of the Weasley family's ancient TV set, his hands twisting anxiously in Hedwig's coat as they watch Tom Marvolo Riddle become the youngest League Champion in Galarian history.

**Author's Note:**

> in which tom riddle would absolutely kill a child 
> 
> Some notes about the universe:  
> -children can raise their own pokémon at age 10  
> -children can obtain a trainer’s license and battle (officially) at age 15  
> -trainers can begin their League challenge at age 21
> 
> Harry’s (age 10, then 13) team so far: Hedwig — a wooloo who imprinted upon him one day at the Weasley family’s farm in Postwick.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [When it never lands at all [ fanart ]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280219) by [Pommlo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pommlo/pseuds/Pommlo)




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